


over the course of a day

by bwyn



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/pseuds/bwyn
Summary: Luffy’s elbow is very suddenly in Usopp’s face as he reaches for the radio again. Then the strap holding the hood down snaps and the truck is full of screaming.“Why didn’t we get this fixed when we got new tires?” Usopp asks the other three some minutes later. Nobody has an answer.“Fuck it,” says Nami, “we’ve got more straps.”***An AU in which Usopp is forced to hitchhike and meets a few concerning characters.





	over the course of a day

**Author's Note:**

> imma be real i'll edit this in like. an hour.

Usopp is still a few hours out from his destination when he realizes the kick of his motorcycle has nothing to do with the pothole he just failed to dodge. Several concerning clunks later, and he’s got the bike propped up on the highway’s shoulder, backpack over his own and a dejected thumb up.

The first vehicle to stop is a bulbous VW Beetle pulling a squat bullet trailer. Usopp goes to meet them on the passenger side, where the window is down and a man wearing a penguin-themed ushanka pokes his head out.

“Where ya headed?” he asks.

“As far as Syrup.”

“Ah, shit,” tuts the man. “Me ‘n Shachi are going north at the next split.”

Usopp thanks them for stopping anyway and they peel away from the shoulder, where Shachi spends the next ten minutes asking Penguin if he’s _sure_ the trailer hitch is tight, and then the following hour on the side of the northbound with a missing bolt, an ashamed Penguin, and Shachi on the phone trying to explain to their friends why they won’t be making it to the campground _quite yet_.

In the meantime, Usopp meets a pretty woman with a cheek piercing who says he can hop in if he covers her tab for dinner (which he ultimately let’s pass when he sees the fervent head shaking of her companions), and then what has to be the dodgiest white pick up he’s ever seen shuddering to a less than graceful halt a short way down the highway.

A woman with a thick tumble of red hair slides from the driver’s side and meets Usopp halfway. He tries not to shift on his feet while she asks him where he’s going, what’s wrong with his bike, why he’s leaving it there (“because people trust confidence,” Kaya would say).

“Whatever it is, it’s a bit beyond the use of duct tape,” Usopp admits. In fact, the bike itself has been held together by varying adhesives and foreign material for the last year and a bit, so he’s honestly impressed by its longevity. He feels kind of (really) bad about ditching it now. “I was just gonna take the license plate and leave it. I don’t exactly… have insurance on it.”

He makes no mention of the elaborate story he’d spun when the dude selling it to him online casually asked. The woman’s grin is suddenly very cocky; Usopp runs through a list of possible escape routes in his head.

“That’s such a waste!” exclaims a fluffy-haired somebody from the truck. “Fix it!”

Usopp, torn between fluffing up his fix-it ability and admitting that the bike would require a full overhaul he doesn’t have the skill nor material to attempt, is beat to the punch by the woman, who tells him just to toss it into the bed to sell for scrap later, as payment.

“Oh, uh, sure,” Usopp agrees automatically before pausing. “Wait, how far can you take me?”

The woman looks back at the truck and the young man slithering half out the window in apparent boredom before a hand yanks him back in. “All the way, I guess.”

Seeing as his destination is still a solid three hours of travel away, Usopp agrees immediately. He silently apologizes to his bike as he rolls it, clunking like a bunch of tin cans, to the bed of the truck. The woman has the tailgate down and cap open, the cap itself an odd sort of yellow, with sections painted over with slightly different yellows. Usopp halts. The woman looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“So, back in the day,” begins Usopp, “I could lift a Harley-Davidson with either arm, for sure, but y’know, stuff happens and—”

She interrupts him with a slap to the rear light, a demanding “ _Zoro_ , we need you”, followed by another slap that summons the most obscene pair of pecs that Usopp has ever seen. The woman seems to take offence to the elasticity of the shirt he’s wearing (while Usopp questions the hideous shade of green he’s chosen for his hair), ragging on him for his choice of fashion while he picks up the motorcycle in one hand and slides it into the bed. When he can tear his eyes away from the frankly indecent show of strength, Usopp finds his gaze glued next to the small pile of fucking _swords_ tucked under a duffel bag that’s been squashed by the back wheel of the bike.

“You scoping?” asks the woman when The Muscle has left.

“What! N-no!” Cursing himself, Usopp quickly points at the collection of fucking _swords_.

The woman sighs. “Oh, yeah. Zoro’s. Don’t ask why.”

“...Why not?”

She shrugs her arms up as if embodying the scales of Libra. Usopp asks, “Then… why _three?_ ”

The mossy-haired muscle mass is suddenly _right there_. “Because three is better than two.” _Obviously_ isn’t voiced but clear in the jerk of his chin.

Usopp doesn’t try to combat that one because there’s really no way he can one-up a dude who travels with a trio of _fucking swords_.

The backseat is crammed with duffel bags and one (1) very large suitcase that looks like it’d be the only thing to survive in a crash. The zippers are locked together. Usopp makes himself comfortable pressed up against it as he’s officially introduced to Pecs Mcgee (Zoro) in the front passenger seat, the black-haired and heavily scarred Luffy (who apparently owns the truck), and Nami, driver and navigator and overall caretaker since that morning.

“They got in a fight over a breakfast buffet with some bikers,” she explains, kicking the truck into a higher gear than Usopp thinks it can take. “Crashed into my table and ruined my meal and offered me a ride.”

“Right, happens all the time,” says Usopp, because that makes _total_ sense (it doesn’t), but Nami looks like she knows the situation is bizarre so he kind of has to trust her rationality. At least, moreso than he can Zoro, who needs _three fucking swords_ , and Luffy, who keeps trying to hang out the window like a dog and only stops when the straw hat tied around his neck is nearly ripped clean off.

With his cellphone battery dead and no way to charge it, Usopp asks to borrow someone else’s. Nami passes hers over her shoulder to him as she zooms past a Mustang convertible pretending it’s on the autobahn. For a moment, Usopp just looks at the little flip phone in his hand, outdated and cheap and surprisingly clean. Definitely a burner.

But Usopp isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, or at least not until later when he’s constructing a tale of Nami on the run from the mob or something, so he gratefully uses it to call Kaya.

With each ring of the phone, Luffy switches the radio station. Every second ring is Zoro snoring.

“Just pick one already,” grouses Nami.

“None of ‘em are _just right_ ,” retorts Luffy.

Nerves gurgle deep within Usopp’s gut as he leaves a voicemail letting Kaya know he’ll be coming through soon. He’s fairly certain nothing terrible might happen within the next few hours, but he’s been proven wrong so often throughout his life that maybe he shouldn’t try for optimism just yet.

Of course, he blames himself when the hood of the truck flies up, effectively blocking the windshield. Nami, mind wandering to citrus groves at the time, is obviously first to notice and the first to scream, inciting twin shrieks from Luffy and Usopp. She nearly breaks the door window in her haste to lower it and stick her head out. By the time they’re safely parked with hazards flashing, Luffy is guffawing and Usopp is outside, bracing himself and trying not to hurl. Zoro snores on.

“It’s broken,” says Usopp when he’s no longer anxious heaving and able to take a look.

“Great,” says Nami, going on to describe colourfully just how willing she is to keep driving with her head stuck out the window (which is to say, not very).

Luckily Luffy has a stash of ratchet straps nobody thought to use to keep the bike stationary. As no swords were harmed, Usopp’s bike goes on unfastened, leaving him with an extra couple straps to weave around the frame of the car and over the hood. When the metal groans, Usopp knows it’s tight enough.

“While we’re at it,” says Usopp, eyeing the truck with distrust, “is there anything else that might need fixing?”

Luffy sticks his lips out in thought before brightening. He slaps one of the wheels with his foot, the bottom of which is black as tar despite the straw flipflop. “The back tires are _totally_ bald, but we can’t really fix that, so.”

He throws his head back, laughs, and both Usopp and Nami cast imploring gazes to the sky. Usopp feels faint.

The passenger side window slowly cranks down so Zoro can blink groggily out at them. “What’s going on?”

Nami says nothing as she pushes his face back in the truck and marches around the other side. The ratchet straps hold well enough, though every minute shudder of the hood has Nami glaring a wordless dare at it to _just_ _try it, see what happens_. They make it to a valley pit stop without further incident.

A small auto shop plastered in vintage license plates and questionably obtained traffic signs switches out their worn tires, taking the crumpled pile of hundred dollar bills that Luffy rummages around the truck for. Usopp adds this to his list of Sketchy Things He’s Learned About These People:

  1. Nami’s burner phone.
  2. Zoro’s ability to sleep through screams and swerving off the highway.
  3. Luffy’s money.



A fourth point is quickly added when they take the time to eat and Usopp learns just how much Luffy is able to consume. He’s got their picnic table absolutely covered in food, hamburgers and hotdogs stacked up on each other like protein Jenga. A man of similar appetite sits nearby, across the bed of pine needles from the spindly conifers towering above them. His hair is viciously red and held back by a pair of welder’s goggles. Usopp watches the man take notice of Luffy, and the way his twice-broken nose wrinkles in disdain. Luffy, apparently feeling the gaze of a kindred spirit, looks up. Their eyes meet.

“I _win!_ ” declares Luffy ten minutes later. The picnic table is devoid of edible material. Usopp and Nami feel similarly ill; Zoro sips his beer.

“Hell no,” snarls Luffy’s opponent. “I had more burgers in the first place!”

“Bullshit!”

The redhead practically leaps over his table, bowling over his companions as he strides towards Luffy, who would do the same but for Nami’s iron grip on his collar.

“I’m not cleaning up after you again!” Nami snaps and gives his collar a yank that Luffy protests with a gurgle.

The redhead’s friends are quick to make grabs for him, one man with a long mane of blond hair hooking a muscled arm around his middle. “Cut it out, Kid!”

Usopp is surprised the interaction doesn’t end with pressure-induced regurgitation, but nonetheless Luffy is safely redirected back to the truck and its fresh wheels. The whole way, Nami reams Luffy out—”Guys like that have _knives_ and I’m not dealing with that, thanks.”—while Zoro idly finishes off his beer—”I’ve got swords.”—and Usopp prays for his safe arrival in Syrup—”Contrary to popular belief, bringing swords to a knife fight is _not_ conducive to a good time.”

Back on the road with Luffy changing radio stations midsong, Usopp works up the courage for some small talk, asking them where they’re all headed, which leads to the fifth point on his list.

 

  * 5\. None of them are going _anywhere_.



 

“I just want an adventure,” says Luffy, “and so did Zoro!”

“Not really,” says Zoro.

“And this was a couple days ago. We beat up some cops together!”

“I didn’t want an adventure, I just—”

Luffy stares at him incredulously. “You _don’t?”_

“No, I—whatever.” Zoro sighs, itching for the roadie Nami refused to let him open. “I don’t mind where we’re going.”

 

  * 6\. Luffy and Zoro have a violent history with cops.



 

Although the latest might not be sketchy as opposed to entirely mortifying, Usopp doesn’t want to tempt fate with a new list and so allows it to stay. He leans over the center console to whisper to Nami, “Were you aware of...that?”

Nami nods. “Kind of makes this whole going anywhere thing a lot easier when I know I can cut my losses suddenly and blame it on them.”

“What.”

Luffy’s elbow is very suddenly in Usopp’s face as he reaches for the radio again. Then the strap holding the hood down snaps and the truck is full of screaming.

“Why didn’t we get this fixed when we got new tires?” Usopp asks the other three some minutes later. Nobody has an answer.

“Fuck it,” says Nami, “we’ve got more straps.”

Usopp uses all of them this time, and then some other pieces of rope-like material as a backup. Luffy even offers his laces from a pair of shoes he clearly doesn’t wear. When he’s done, Nami hooks her fingers under the hood and gives it several good yanks. Something cracks ominously.

“I’m blaming you if I die,” Nami tells Usopp, who accepts his fate with solemnity.

They’re all in the truck when Usopp realizes they’re not actually all in the truck. “Where’s Zoro?”

“Went for a piss,” says Luffy.

“Where?”

“Out… there…” Luffy’s gesture towards the woods goes limp.

“So, we just wait for him, yeah?” says Usopp.

Nami levels him a pitying look. “He’ll never come back.”

“Huh?”

“One time,” says Luffy, as if it wasn’t probably just yesterday, “we were at a breakfast buffet—”

Oh, that very _morning_ then.

“—and he went to the bathroom but took the back exit and left the building—”

Wait. A quick glance at Nami, who shakes her head. Different breakfast buffet then.

“—and ended up on a bus headed out of town, but the driver kicked him off before they made it to the end of the street!”

Luffy has the gall to burst out laughing. Usopp kind of wants to throttle him; Nami nearly does.

“We have no way of communicating,” Nami says as they traipse down a ditch beside the highway shoulder. The forest looms ahead of them, which wouldn’t be all that foreboding if not for the fact Zoro is the type to board a bus on his way to the bathroom. “So don’t wander too far. Meet back in like, half an hour. You can do that right?”

Usopp nods; both cast apprehensive looks at Luffy. “Yeah, I got it,” says the guy knuckle deep in his own nose.

The buddy system suggestion is stubbornly refused, and so it is with heavy hearts that Nami and Usopp follow Luffy into the woods. Usopp finds himself looking under boulders as if Zoro is a snake, kicking suspiciously large piles of pine needles and uncertain whether he’s hoping he’ll find a fully grown man beneath it all.

Some distance away, Luffy is in a tree and hollering Zoro’s name. As it turns out, flipflops aren’t great footwear for climbing, and he falls halfway to the ground before another branch catches him around the middle. The tree helps him the rest of the way and leaves him sprawled out on the ground covered in scrapes and sap. After a quick brush off, Luffy is back on his feet and marching along, pine needles sticking out of his straw hat like sparse hair.

Nami, even while seriously considering making off with the truck and stranding them, asks around the pit stop. It’s not as though Zoro is hard to miss, but nobody seems to recall seeing him except when he’d been surrounded by the rest of the group. Near the deadline she set, Nami makes her way back to the truck, weighing the pros and cons of filing a missing persons report. The cons are far outweighing any of the pros and Nami is prepared to say a final farewell to Zoro’s memory when her eyes zero in on the truck.

Or more specifically, the passenger seat, presently occupied by a cross-armed and snoring green-haired muscle mass.

Nami stands at the window, rolled down because apparently the fool had the forethought to allow in fresh air but not to let anyone know where he’d been off to. For a long minute, Nami stands where fighting the violent urge to lock him inside the truck with a wasp.

In the end, she waits for Usopp to join her, and the two of them lock the truck and return to the woods to find where Luffy had gotten his head stuck in the stump of a tree.

For the rest of the drive into Syrup, Nami refuses to make another stop.

Entering the city feels a lot like breaking free of a liminal space, Usopp thinks, as dense trees in the midst of shifting colours give way to steel and concrete. Reality seems to trickle back with every car opting out of turn signals, every pedestrian power-walking for the bus stop.

Syrup should be a familiar place, and it’s only been a handful of years since he’d lived here with his mom, but so much already has changed. He thinks that plaza used to be half the size it is now, and he doesn’t recognize any of the billboards. Was there ever a tower there? Since when had that lot become a block of cookie-cutter houses?

Maybe it’s because he’s older now and seeing so much more than just the wan smile of his sickly mother in the driver’s seat.

“Do you know where to go from here?”

Usopp blinks and he’s back, leaning uncomfortably against the locked suitcase, Luffy’s dirt-blackened heel pressed against his calf, Zoro snoring away, Nami meeting his gaze through the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” says Usopp, smelling citrus, not antiseptic. “It’s a left before the movie theater.”

Kaya’s house was always a refuge for Usopp. He’d long since realized their friendship was built on falsehoods and Usopp’s desire to feel as if he could fix something, if not his mother’s health. Cheering up a lonely girl seemed an easy choice. The other feelings that grew in—the fluffy warm ones that overpowered the itchy guilt and smothering despair—only made it more difficult to move away in the end.

If there’s one thing Usopp is proud of his younger self for doing, it’s not losing contact with Kaya.

“This it it,” says Usopp when they pull up to a large house with wraparound porch. It obviously belongs to a family from old money.

Nami pulls into a driveway much steeper than it needs to be and cranks the parking brake up. Her gaze flits to the second floor windows, with convenient overhangs located close to a nearby oak.

“Thanks for everything,” Usopp says as he hops out of the truck to the sound of Luffy’s whines and Zoro’s mild farewell. Nami sees the way his smile trembles oddly, and her own goodbye fails halfway up her throat.

Usopp practically drags his backpack behind him as he takes the wide steps leading to the porch. Nami picks at her cuticles, watching the front door of the manor fling open to an older gentleman with curly white hair. His face is twisted in despair. The gearshift is loose under Nami’s palm.

“I don’t like this song,” says Luffy, reaching for the radio.

“Then just turn it off,” mutters Zoro.

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard!”

The man is on his knees, clearly sobbing, Usopp frantic and awkward. Nami hears the window roll down in sharp jerks behind her.

“Yo, what’s up?” Luffy calls out.

Which is how they learn about Kaya (kind and sickly in equal measure) and the tutor Merry had hired so she wouldn’t feel so alone (in a house meant for more than just a girl and her housekeep). Kuro was supposed to print the ticket to Kaya’s future; Kuro was supposed to help.

“She went to him,” Usopp says simply. “He’s blackmailing her for money.”

“And she’s letting him?” asks Nami.

“Because it’s me. I can’t… I can’t protect myself, so she’s doing it for me.”

Usopp is a small man filled with common sense and no self-esteem and Nami doesn’t think she should just be sitting in this patchwork truck while he looks on the precipice of losing everything (everything _else_ ; she knows, she saw it in the way he watched the buildings pass by).

Nami is a woman shaped by wrath and greed and like hell she’ll let another girl be torn to pieces by men with too much power and not enough humanity.

“Why don’t you scare him away?” asks Luffy, to which Usopp stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “I’ll do it.”

“You can’t just do that!” Usopp protests even as Merry dutifully climbs into the truck.

“I’m gonna,” says Luffy with a bright smile.

Nami doesn’t notice him reach for the parking brake, but she definitely feels the lurch of the truck suddenly rolling down the driveway in neutral. Cursing, she flattens the clutch and brake to control the descent of the vehicle, all the while Usopp squawking as he throws himself inside.

“You’re crazy,” Usopp tells Luffy from where he’s crammed between Merry and the door he barely managed to close.

Luffy leans forward, gazing deeply into his soul as he says, “This is how friendship _works_ , Usopp.”

It’s only been three hours but he’s inclined to agree.

Merry gives Nami directions to Kuro’s supposed location while Luffy reaches past him to punch buttons on the radio.

“We bust in and knock everyone on their ass,” Luffy is saying.

 _“_ _For there'll be peace when you are done._ _Lay your weary head to rest.”_

“I call dibs on the boss,” says Zoro.

_“Everytime you close your eyes, lies! Lies!”_

“What? No way! He’s mine. You can take out the minibosses.”

_“_ _Feelin' sorry's never really been my struggle—”_

“I’m the one with the swords.”

“You are _not_ bringing swords with you,” snaps Nami.

_“Yeah I was out of touch, but it wasn't because I didn't know enough.”_

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you’re not allowed to just carry lethal weapons around, Zoro.”

_“Don't try to fight the feeling because the thought alone is killin' me right now.”_

“This is it,” decides Luffy, retracting his hand from the radio. “Zoro doesn’t get his swords so I get to knock out the boss.”

“Nobody’s hitting anybody until we know what’s going on.”

“But we know he’s bad!”

“Okay, unless he attacks us, we’re going to try _words_ , first. Got it? Luffy. Luffy, I asked you a question. Luffy, look at me.”

“ _Hey ya~! He~y ya! Hey ya~!”_

Usopp tries to focus on the ceiling instead of the parkour of his stomach under his intestines and over his heart.

_“Shake it like a Polaroid picture! Hey ya!”_

“This is the place,” Merry says as Nami parks in a loading zone.

Usopp leans forward to get a look at the storefront, an unrecognizable pawn shop with things nobody wants or needs on display. Just another store barely paying rent on the strip, squashed between a travel agency and a maternity clothing shop, its sign sun bleached and smeared in pigeon shit.

It’s not scary but nevertheless, Usopp is terrified.

Luffy beats everyone out of the car by crawling out through the window, closely followed by Zoro and Nami, the latter lunging for Luffy’s collar before he can enact one of his plans of entry.

“We just need to get Kaya and go,” Usopp tries saying, but it’s obvious nobody but Merry is actively listening.

For some reason Luffy is popping open the buttons on his red shirt, which incidentally puts on display an incredibly gnarled chest scar that nobody wants to comment on (except arguably for Zoro, who nearly rips his shirt in two with the intention of also displaying his chest scar).

“Well?” prompts Nami, unimpressed. “Get a move on.”

Luffy and Zoro fling open the pawn shop’s door with zeal; Nami pushes Usopp in after them.

The inside of the store is dim enough that it takes a moment for Usopp to get used to the lighting, but he recognizes Kaya’s voice at once. She’s arguing near the back of the shop, her voice hoarse with use beyond gentle discussion. Usopp pushes to the front of the group, fears forgotten, fingers curling into shaking fists and his heart pumping reckless confidence.

“Kaya!”

She turns and Usopp’s eyes, accustomed to the poor lighting, sees a drawn and haggard face too thin for a girl that he remembers glowing and full of optimism. Kaya’s brow drops into a disbelieving frown.

“Usopp…” she begins, pained.

“As I was saying, miss,” the cashier interrupts with false indifference, “he won’t be seeing you today. Pay the debt and leave.”

Kaya rounds on the lanky old man standing there like a limp stalk of wheat. “You _will_ let me speak to him. I’m not giving you the money until y-you—”

She breaks off in a coughing fit, gasping for breath by the time Usopp is within arm’s reach. His hands flutter uselessly around her. Unable to help, Usopp settles for glaring at the cashier, who simply shrugs.

“Kuro ain’t here for negotiating,” he says.

Breathing hard, Kaya lifts her watery gaze to glower at him. “Yes. He will.”

Usopp would like nothing more than to whisk Kaya away to safety, but he also knows that the problem will never be settled like that. He’s the one that runs; she has nowhere to run to. Bolstered by this knowledge, and the fact that he’s got two fools that had seriously discussed starting a fist fight are at his back, Usopp lets himself succumb to a fit of inspiration.

On the counter is a metal egg, probably a paperweight, with a $5.99 sticker on it. Usopp seizes it and smashes it through the display case.

“Get Kuro out here,” Usopp says to the shocked wheat stalk, “or I’ll turn this place to dust.”

“Nice!” says Luffy.

In truth, Usopp didn’t expect the glass to break that easily. His hands are shaking but he’s banking on everyone focusing more on the broken glass that somehow didn’t end up embedded in his fingers.

“Do that again and I’ll call the cops,” hisses the cashier.

Usopp gulps.

“Really?” says Nami from where she’s (not at all suspiciously) wandering the narrow aisles. “You want cops sniffing around here?”

“Yeah, breaking things sounds like a great idea!” Luffy decides as if that has anything to do with what Nami just said. He looks around thoughtfully before backhanding a line of teacups off a shelf.

The cashier—and Usopp, truthfully—flinches back in horror at the destroyed merchandise. Luffy stares at the man with a dangerously blank expression. Sensing a bull in a china shop, Limp-Wheat-Man spins around and runs into the back of the store.

Usopp and Kaya exchange surprised glances, then Kaya’s sweaty brow furrows. “What are you doing here, Usopp?

“I told you I was visiting,” mumbles Usopp.

“I told you not to.”

“Which hurt my feelings.”

“It’s not like I didn’t want to see you,” protests Kaya weakly, the edge of her voice crumpling into a cough.

Usopp’s hand hovers at her shoulder as it flinches with each cough. “I know,” he says, “I know, but I also knew something wasn’t right and you were so vague… I couldn’t just ignore it.”

Coughing subsided, Kaya gazes at Usopp, expression indiscernible. From where she stands beside a china cabinet, Nami tries not to pay any attention to the tender atmosphere growing between the two (that’s just good manners), and instead focuses more on the quality of pocketable goods out on display. Luffy simply stares; Zoro eyes an umbrella stand, a hand inching towards a well-wrapped tsuka.

“Ah, the little liar.” A pale man, lean and unthreatening in stature, slips through the doorway. Shrewd eyes behind round glasses slide from Usopp to Kaya as if appraising tarnished silverware. Usopp stiffens with that gaze so carelessly scraping over the sweat beading across Kaya’s skin and the tremble of her shoulders.

“I see you have made a mess of my shop,” Kuro says indifferently as he rounds the counter. “That won’t do. One cannot expect negotiations if one doesn’t exercise patience of their own.”

The man is too close to Kaya, glasses glinting dangerously. Where before Usopp remembers mild smiles is a thin slash of a mouth. This man does not care about Kaya. Usopp steps in closer but Kuro is already grabbing Kaya’s arm, drawing a pocket knife in one smooth movement and holding it to the skin of her neck.

The knife is less terrifying than the lengthy blade suddenly poised over Usopp’s shoulder and pointing directly at Kuro’s throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Usopp sees a price tag dangling from the hilt.

“Wanna see who’s faster?” asks Zoro as if he’s done this before (and let’s be honest, he probably has (and to be honest, he has)).

The store is so quiet that Usopp can hear the shifting of glass shards in the display case, still settling over rings and pendants. Perhaps everyone else can hear the drumming of his heart. They can definitely hear the ill-timed growl of Luffy’s stomach; somehow they don’t hear Nami pilfering a set of silver spoons.

Slowly, Kuro relinquishes his grip on Kaya, allowing her to stumble towards Usopp, his hands already lifting catch her.

It might be the instant the knife flashes down, or the second Usopp feels it cut into his skin, or perhaps it occurs in the sliver of time between Usopp flinging his arm out as a shield and red spotting Kaya’s sundress. In the end, it’s not really important. All hell breaks loose.

Luffy kicks Kuro in the chest, sending him flying over the counter and through the back door; Luffy’s sandaled foot returns to the ground, Zoro vaults over the counter, and all the men in the gambling den masked as a pawn shop rise from their chairs with guns drawn.

Lead starts flying and Usopp swears he hears Nami cry, “Not again” as the cash register explodes.

Pushing Kaya’s head down, Usopp ushers her out of the store in a panicked haste. Several somethings shatter to his left; several more men scream. The excitable warcry definitely belongs to Luffy. Out on the sidewalk, Usopp practically lifts Kaya by the arms in the direction of the truck. Merry already sits behind the steering wheel, the whites of his eyes visible through the windshield.

“What’s going on?” he bleats in terror.

Usopp whips around, taking in the fools with their phones out instead of clearing the area, and hollers, “ _Gunfight! Call the police!”_

One person snaps out of their dreams of internet stardom to dial 911 just as Nami comes darting out of the store, clutching at her person as though holding it altogether. Things tinkle and roll out of sight when she hops into the back seat with Usopp and Kaya.

“Start it up,” she demands, yanking the door shut.

“But Zoro and Luffy—” Usopp begins.

“They’ll come,” she interrupts as the truck’s engine roars to life. The pawn shop’s display window shatters. “Well, they’d better at least. I really don’t want to die here, Merry, let’s get a move on!”

Kaya hunches over, sounding as though her lungs are about to give out. This alone gives Merry the motivation to stomp the truck into gear, scraping off the curb and barely missing the bumper of the car ahead. Everyone ducks instinctively as they accelerate past the pawn shop and the chaos within. What they don’t expect is the jarring thud as something collides with the back of the truck.

Warbling in fear, Merry maintains the straight line the truck is moving in as the rest of its occupants twist in their seats to get a look behind them.

“Is that normal?” Kaya manages to wheeze.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” says Nami.

There, perched on the bumper, is a positively beaming Luffy, one hand latched onto the truck and the opposite arm possibly the only thing keeping Zoro from meeting concrete. Despite the reckless boarding procedure, Usopp sighs in relief.

They turn the corner just as flashing lights appear at the end of the street, heralding the arrival of law enforcement. The journey to Kaya’s house is a short one as it turns out Merry is a speeder when nervous.

“Okay,” says Usopp as they clamber out of the truck. “Okay, okay, okay. Kaya, Merry, pack your things. Overnight bags. We need to, uh, take you to the police in case K-Kuro comes for you. Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap—”

Luffy snorts a laugh. “Nah, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Movement was probably impossible for him by the time we left,” Zoro says as he tucks away the katana he swiped from the shop. Somehow all four of his swords are pristine, despite rolling around with an unfastened motorcycle.

“Wha—” Usopp stops and gives himself a full body shake. “Nevermind. Okay. Cool, cool, cool.”

Plausible deniability and all that.

Without the immediate threat of an entire illegal gambling ring coming for their heads, Usopp spends the next half hour in a daze produced by the fizzling dregs of adrenaline. By the time he snaps out of it, they’ve apparently finished an entire meal (several for Luffy with the addition of a bottle of liquor for Zoro) and Kaya has bandaged his arm. Nami sits with Luffy’s hat in hand, sewing up a bullet hole in the straw.

“Are you sure you won’t stay the night?” asks Merry once the table has been cleared.

“Nah, that’d be boring,” says Luffy, standing with his hands on his hips. “I don’t wanna miss a thing!”

Nobody seems to know exactly what is is that Luffy doesn’t want to miss. Perhaps _things_ truly is the only appropriate response.

“Do you have a goal in mind?” asks Kaya.

Luffy cocks his head and grins. “There’s someone I wanna meet, but I can’t until I’m stronger.”

It’s difficult to match up the present vision of Luffy, fearlessly rushing armed men in a confined space, with another version that is somehow stronger. What’ll be next? Taking down a drug cartel? A corrupt government? Saving a princess or three?

Perhaps it’s foolish to dream up achievements and expect them to align with Luffy’s definition of strength.

Once his hat is fixed and safely crowned once more, Luffy announces their departure and bounds out of the house like he’s on a time crunch. Zoro at least thanks Merry for the extra bottle of liquor that leaves with him, and Nami, well, she thinks it should noted that she didn’t filch a single thing from Kaya’s house.

Usopp is watching them leave when he feels Kaya at his side, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like. I know you’re not happy where you are now.”

“Understatement,” Usopp mumbles. “I quit my job last night and bailed on my rent.”

It took courage Usopp didn’t think he had, but for her, he would’ve done anything. Fleeing from a life he didn’t love to throw himself at Kuro without a plan felt like the end of the line. Now, though, with an unknown future ahead...

A shoulder nudges his own, and he looks over to Kaya’s gentle smile. “There’s no rent here, you know.”

Just that morning, Usopp would’ve never expected to finish wrapping Kuro up in police tape mere hours later, but it appears there is power in reckless strength. After spending the years following his mother’s death reinforcing a façade of capability over his evolving anxiety, Usopp finds himself truly envious. Not only of Luffy, playing chicken with death, or Zoro, undeniable in his confidence, or even Nami who, despite everything, never ended up taking the easy way out.

Most of all, Usopp envies Kaya, because she was the only one with an excuse to do nothing, but regardless she chose to act.

“Thank you,” says Usopp, “but I think I want to push on.”

Kaya’s smile is maybe a little disappointed, but the hand on his arm is a firm push. Towards the open door, and raucous laughter, the rumble of the engine as the truck rolls free from the driveway. Usopp steps out onto the porch with his bag heavy in his hand but his heart lighter than anything, even with the fluttering of his nerves.

“ _Oi_ , what are you waiting for?”

Idling at the curb waits the truck; ugly yellows, dirty white, three terribly unpredictable people in the best and worst of ways, one of whom hangs out of the window with his straw hat crammed on his head, demanding Usopp’s attendance.

“Oh,” says Usopp. “I guess I’m holding them up.”

Kaya giggles, her smile already brightening what was once sickly. “Hurry up, then.”

Usopp bounds down the driveway to where the truck sits. Luffy retracts from the window as the door opens and Usopp lifts his bag to toss it to the other end of the seat. Upon contact with the suitcase, the bag clinks suspiciously.

“Um,” he says when he peeks inside.

“Fees for giving Kaya a hard time,” Nami says, plucking a gold wristwatch from his hand and dropping it back into the bag. “They were just gonna end up seized anyway.”

Usopp thinks, in the end, Nami might be the one he should watch out for the most.

“So, where do we want to go?” asks Nami when they’re on the road and nearing their first intersection.

To the right is industry and tall buildings that scrape the sky; to the left is the nearest edge of the city, and beyond that trees and an endless road. Usopp thinks about fixing his motorcycle while Nami wonders about the value of her goods, and Zoro considers his newly acquired sword.

And Luffy, screwing up his face in thought, frees the radio of his finger and points left.

“That way!”

**Author's Note:**

> gazes deeply at the ever growing laundry list of wips. what has become of me.
> 
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> [tumblr](http://bitterbeetle.tumblr.com)  
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/bitterbeetle)


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